Support mobilisation

It is held that political parties’ or candidates’ efforts to maximise their votes or seats are reliant on voters’ support (Foot & Schneider, 2006; Gibson et al., 2004;

Norris, 2002). Such support is reflected in different forms, such as organising and participating in campaign events – political rallies for instance, and, most importantly, casting their votes for the parties or candidates on election day. Thus, it is vital for parties or candidates to identify potential supporters, particularly those who are disengaged from traditional campaigning, and translate support sentiment from them and the existing faithful into tangible support actions (Gibson et al., 2004; Norris, 2002; Owen & Davis, 2008).

It is indicated that support mobilisation is increasingly challenging for political parties and candidates because voters have become increasingly passive since television became the main election campaign technology, they also spend less

time participating in events supporting their parties or candidates (Owen & Davis, 2008).

Another rising challenge in support mobilisation pertains to political disengagement of young voters (Ward, Owen, et al., 2008). Those voters represent the fastest growing population. They are the least likely to vote on election day and also account for the largest segment of voters who are least interested in conventional politics.

In traditional campaigning, political parties’ or candidates’ support mobilisation typically focuses on supporters who have already been identified by the parties or candidates and ensuring that those supporters have voted on election day (Denver

& Hands, 2002). For instance, on election day, campaign team members spread across voting stations to record and track whether the identified supporters have voted; those who have not yet voted would be sought after and are often offered a lift to a voting station nearby. This, however, is resource-intensive and focuses solely on existing loyalists, leading to the situation of mobilising the mobilised (Denver & Hands, 2002).

It is suggested that ICTs enable political parties and candidates to alleviate those challenges in support mobilisation in different ways (Foot & Schneider, 2006;

Gibson, 2012; Gibson et al., 2004; Ward, Owen, et al., 2008). For instance, with an increasing number of people, especially youth, connected to the Internet across the globe, it is anticipated that e-campaigning enables political parties and candidates to identify and seek new supporters, particularly those who are disengaged from conventional politics (Hoff, 2011; Ward, Owen, et al., 2008).

Loader’s (2007) assertion concerning youth and political participation is noteworthy. According to him, there is a misconception widely held in both academia and practice that young citizens are politically disengaged or disaffected.

They are in fact passionate about political affairs. The primary reason for their apparent political disengagement lies within political parties’ or politicians’ lack of understanding and empathy relating to the new, different medium used by most young citizens, namely the Internet. Loader refers to that as cultural displacement.

It is also suggested that the networking capabilities of the Internet enable parties

and candidates to build online communities, eradicating time and geographical constraints, in order to organise, collaborate, and expand both online and offline supporting activities (Gibson, 2012; Gibson et al., 2004). As Owen and Davis (2008, p. 98) put it, ‘the Internet has provided a means for the supporters to play more than a spectator role in the campaign.’

Content elements associated with support mobilisation. In e-campaigning, support mobilisation is generally observable in the following content elements:

means for voters to invite their peers to participate in campaign events; means to inform voters of electoral information; means for voters to receive campaign information and updates; means for voters to connect with supporter groups;

means for voters to download campaign material; and means for voters to forward campaign material to others (e.g., Bimber, 2014; Foot & Schneider, 2006; Foot et al., 2007; Gibson & McAllister, 2008; Owen & Davis, 2008; Schweitzer, 2011; Ward, Gibson, et al., 2008).

There are two instances of support mobilisation in e-campaigning that attract scholars’ attention. They pertain to Howard Dean’s and Obama’s e-campaigning.

Before Obama, Dean, a candidate in the 2004 US Democratic primaries, was considered as a pioneer in e-campaigning chiefly because of his innovative support mobilisation at the time, referred to as ‘the Dean phenomenon’ in the literature (Bimber, 2014; Gibson, 2012; Gibson & Rommele, 2005; Graf, 2008).

Dean was not one of the early adopters of campaigning in the election, his e-campaigning came much later than his rivals’. In the early phase of the election, Dean was not as widely known as his other competitors and consequently, he was sidelined by the mainstream media. This put Dean in an unfavourable situation. In order to catch up in the race, Dean and his campaign team tapped into the Internet and its related applications to solicit and mobilise support. Instead of merely providing a link to receive campaign news on his website and waiting for site visitors to sign up, Dean actively used the Internet to reach out to grass-roots citizens and political activists. More specifically, two main websites were used in order for Dean to achieve that goal. Dean first utilised his official campaign blog,

‘Howard Dean 2004 Call to Action Weblog’, to engage the attention of voters by

disseminating his views on different issues particularly concerning American voters, such as war against Iraq. Once his blog had started to gain sufficient public interest and support, Dean encouraged his supporters to register on a web page of his campaign site called ‘Meetup’, which served the purposes of a centralised community for fragmented supporter groups as well as organising and implementing offline support events – such as a series of rallies that captured significant attention from both the mass media and political scientists. As a result of his innovative utilisation of ICTs to mobilise support, Dean rose from a candidate who was marginalised by traditional media and barely known to the US public to a candidate who was frequently mentioned in the US mainstream media and academic literature (Bimber, 2014; Gibson, 2012; Gibson & Rommele, 2005;

Graf, 2008).

A main feature of Obama’s widely-publicised e-campaigning in the 2008 US presidential election pertains to support mobilisation (Bimber, 2014; Gibson, 2012; S. Hill, 2009). At the early stage of his campaign, knowing that most young American voters frequently visited social networking sites such as Myspace, YouTube, and Facebook, Obama established his presence across those websites and focused on issues of particular interest to young American voters. Moreover, Obama made a music video together with ‘The Black Eyed Peas’, a popular music group in the US. The video contained Obama’s campaign message and was published on YouTube to attract youth support (S. Hill, 2009). Obama mobilised support among voters in other age groups by using the networking capabilities of the Internet to build a large virtual community of supporters. Members of this community were encouraged to organise both online and offline campaign events, and recruit new members. Furthermore, Obama used both the Internet and SMS (short message service) to remind his supporters, together with their friends and family members, to vote for him on election day. For instance, on the day of the election, voters who had signed up for Obama’s SMS alerts received at least three text messages urging them to cast their vote for Obama (S. Hill, 2009).

Nevertheless, Gibson (2012) indicates that ICT-mediated support mobilisation in general produces mixed results. According to her, some studies claim that there is a strong association between e-campaigning and a higher vote share while others

hardly discern any mobilisation effects induced by e-campaigning. Overall, says Gibson, political scientists remain sceptical.